The ElectroPoetics (Bixiao Zhang) E-motion Cloud, 2023, interactive video installation
Image courtesy of the Artist.
E-Motion Cloud
[Light] Up inserts a dynamic projection installation by The ElectroPoetics in the pulsing public heart of Prahran. Generated in partnership with Just Another Agency this artwork works with the context and people of City of Stonnington for their What's Up series. Making work from the data cloud and social media affects, resulting in a digital version of an arora, this uncanny weather system lifts us into states of speculation and reflection.
This immersive projection installation titled E-Motion Cloud rumbles a storm of data visualisation, using the increasing ways in which our social interactions are governed by data and media platforms. Emotions are mapped like weather systems, and they swarm in unexpected and lush waves.
The Electropoetics (Bixiao Zhang) explains: “E-motion Cloud visualises the emotional flux of social media as the digital weather that influences our everyday mood while we also become part of the weather as social media users. The video installation explores real-time interactive relations and can be location sensitive (i.e. the digital weather of Collingwood) or keyword/hashtag sensitive. The project aims to visualise the emotional exchange across humans/media/machines and its affect of possible intimacy/intrusions, and explore a more sympathetic and ecological approach to digital communication.”
Located on the corner of Izett Street and Chatham Street, Prahran (corner of Prahran Square)
Friday 5th - Sunday 21st May
Open Thursday to Sunday, 3-8PM
Please Note: Sunday Sessions 3-6pm will be Low Sensory sessions.
Follow project updates at @the_electropoetics
@whatsup.artevents and @justanotheragency
Artists
Bixiao Zhang (Frankie) is a digital artist and Ph.D. candidate at RMIT University. Her practice-led research, a fluid entity termed “The ElectroPoetics”, explores performative engagements with the digital environment and ecological approach to human-robot interaction, guided by Chinese Shan-shui thought, feminist eco-poetics, and electrodynamics. Bixiao mainly engaged in public art projects and residencies in the Asia Pacific before 2020, such as residency at Hong Kong Cattle Depot Art Village (2017), Goethe Institute x Creative Fes Shenzhen (2019), and JMMK #12 media festival Indonesia (2020), Hua Niao Island International Art Festival, China (2021). These projects are interested in the influence of the digital environment’s emergent ontogenetic patterns on a specific physical site. Bixiao won the 2021 Dean’s Award for her research. Her latest projects include an artist residency at the Centre for Projection Art (Australia), a research residency at Post Humanist Art Network (San Francisco), and exhibitions at Bunjil Place, Footscray Community Arts, and Blindside Gallery (Australia).
team
Artistic director & curator: Priya Namana
Studio & Project Coordinator: Dhariz Manalo
Technical Manager: Anatol Pitt
Marketing & Communications: Debris Facility
Thank you to Toby Benador and Alyce Bell from Just Another Agency for their time, support and invitation to collaborate on this project.